Nick Champion (Wakefield, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to support the Australian Wine and Brandy Corporation Amendment Bill 2009 also. It is nice to have a bit of bipartisanship in the chamber. I spent my youth in Kapunda, which is a small town on the edge of the Barossa Valley. I still have school friends who work in the wineries as winemakers and in the packaging industry, so I am well aware of the importance it has to regional economies and to employment. Over the last decade or so we have seen the industry transform itself into an absolute champion exporter of Australian produce. We have to appreciate the effort and skill that goes into the production of some of those prestigious wines. With that experience in the back of my mind, I am happy to commend this bill to the House and to support it.

Any of the wine consumers present or listening to this speech will acknowledge that the Clare Valley, the Barossa Valley and the Adelaide Plains, all within my Wakefield electorate, are regions with well-deserved reputations for producing some of Australia’s finest wines. The Clare Valley is home to 50 wineries, produces only two per cent of Australia’s grape crush and yet wins 20 per cent of the wine awards available to Australian wineries every year. The Barossa Valley, which is home to 150 wineries, is listed as one of the world’s top 10 wine destinations. It is a wonderful place to go, not just for wines but for great food, scenery, fellowship and company. It is one of those terrific places to live or to visit. The Adelaide Plains are not quite as famous, but I have been out there many times and visited some of the wineries. A different type of wine is produced there, but there have been terrific achievements nonetheless.

It is the longevity of these achievements and many others that the bill before the House seeks to maintain. One of the objectives of the bill is to preserve the reputations of geographical indicators, such as those I mentioned as well as many others throughout Australia, from becoming targets of misuse, either domestically or from foreign export markets. The bill achieves this by allowing the Australian-European Community Agreement on Trade in Wine to come into full effect. Furthermore, the EC agreement certifies Australia’s reputation as a producer of wines of quality and integrity and expands access to our largest export market. The second objective of the bill is to strengthen the Australian Wine and Brandy Corporation’s Label Integrity Program, the LIP. This program seeks to protect all stakeholders within the Australian wine industry by ensuring that the Australian wine labels are truthful and accurate with regard to their origin and their characteristics.

The bill introduces accountability within the Australian wine industry, which is fundamental to ensuring the longevity of its world-class reputation. Accountability will ultimately also help us move up the value chain, which is one of the most important things for us to do.

This bill is receiving widespread support from the Australian wine industry, and it has the support of stakeholders and the opposition. As I said, it is wonderful to speak on a bill which has bipartisan support. It is something of a rarity these days, and we hope that there is no change of mind between now and its passage to the other place. Bipartisanship is important to the Australian wine industry at this time.

This bill also allows Australian winemakers to enjoy better access to European markets, and that access is a terribly important thing. The bill includes European recognition of an additional 16 Australian winemaking techniques, simplifies labelling requirements for Australian wine sold in European markets and provides protection within Europe for Australia’s 112 registered geographical indicators, including—most importantly to me—the Barossa Valley, the Adelaide Plains and the Clare Valley.

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